The Bazz Show

Mihai Patru is an Entrepreneur in Residence on Social Entrepreneurship at the Office of Technology Partnerships, University of California in Riverside. Prior, he was a Senior Fellow at the School of Public Policy, University of California in Riverside, where he designed and launched the first social entrepreneurship pre-accelerator at the University, SEED Lab.

He serves as Executive Director of Caravanserai Project, a hybrid mission-driven venture he co-founded in 2016 which focuses on identifying, mobilizing and supporting change makers along their journeys. He founded Mozaïque, a social business working with artisans around the world to develop mechanisms meant to increase their financial predictability. He was involved in various capacities with numerous social impact ventures as part of initiatives like Echoing Green, European Social Innovation Challenge and Mentor Capital Networks.

He started his professional career as a diplomat with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Romania serving in different capacities including advisor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Deputy Minister for Global Affairs. In 2015, he joined the Center for Transatlantic Relations, Johns Hopkins University, as Senior Fellow, and was the recipient of the U.S. State Department Transatlantic Diplomatic Fellowship (2013/2014 cohort). He completed his graduate work at Central European University in Budapest (MA '10) and Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Washington DC (MIPP '17).

Dirk Hopfl is an experienced higher education professional with 20+ years of experience. He spent the last 15 years in Singapore. Dirk is the founder and Managing Director of eduALTO, a consultancy to help create successful universities.

In parallel, he works as an education expert at Asaya Group and strategic advisor for the EdTech company Speechsquare.

Dirk led the APAC region for Proeduca Group, the largest online education provider in the Spanish-speaking hemisphere. Prior, he was instrumental in the growth of IE University in APAC as International Development Director from Madrid.

He then established the regional office in Singapore covering Southeast Asia, ANZ, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.

He has a strong knowledge of the global data center industry, international capital flows, and macroeconomics, and frequently deciphers current and future trends of both local and global markets. He has a combined degree in business management and economics from the University of California at Santa Cruz. Imboden has produced over 100 industry research reports, provided advisory across the data center industry, and restructured all data center research methodology and data structure at Cushman & Wakefield.

He is a key member of team that created the first fully international commercial real estate platform while at Real Capital Analytics and led all global research programs. He has also constructed and managed research teams in Silicon Valley, New York, and London. He currently  serves as the chair of the board of directors for the Community Overcoming Relationship Abuse in San Mateo, California. He served as board secretary at Umunhum Brewing (2016-2019) in San Jose, California, and on the North American Research Task Force (Emeritus), International Council of Shopping Centers in New York 2013-2018. In his free time, he enjoys travel, basketball, yoga, hiking/running, playing the ukulele, baking treats in the kitchen, and obsessing over Formula 1.